The Italian sovereign bond market experienced considerable disruption in May 2018 and subsequent months amid concerns about the fi scal implications of political developments in Italy. This episode is used to examine relationships among the euro area bond markets some six years after the euro...

A number of tools have been suggested for solving the European sovereign debt crisis, in particular the options of leveraging the EFSF/ESM, introducing Eurobonds and a European Troubled Asset Relief Programme (Euro-TARP). However, it is unclear how these instruments will work, given jittery...

Beyond fleeting references, there is surprisingly little analysis about the interrelationship between fiscal policy and safe assets. This study analyses this interrelationship and argues that, at a certain point, more public debt will not “buy” more safety: countries face a kind of “safe...

The purpose of this paper is to present a survey of the Cameroonian experience in development planning with emphasis on the regional dimension. In the course of analysing the planning process and implementation, an attempt will be made to shed light on some of the major problems which have been...

The ECB’s recently launched Expanded Asset Purchasing Programme is similar to the quantitative easing programmes undertaken by the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan. While theory suggests that quantitative easing can stimulate economic growth and spur inflation via...

Despite the experience of the ongoing sovereign debt crisis, European banks continue to hold large amounts of bonds from their home governments. This ties the fates of the sovereign and the banks together, leading to the disruptive self-reinforcing feedback loops that brought the euro area to...